Samsara Coach for Safety and New AI tools for high-impact manager coaching

Last month, we introduced Samsara Coach for Safety, bringing AI-powered coaching directly into the cab through customized coaching with an AI Avatar and two-way, in-cab AI voice calls. By arming drivers with an AI-powered co-pilot, safety teams can provide personalized driver coaching without adding additional resources.

Today, we’re expanding Samsara Coach to provide drivers with holistic coaching support, starting with a new start-of-day audio briefing. With this new feature, Samsara Coach supports driver coaching throughout their entire safety lifecycle: before, during, and after every trip.

"With so many drivers we can't interact with everyone one-on-one,” said Robert Howard, COO at Dohrn Transfer Company. “Samsara Coach delivers consistent, personalized coaching to every driver in our fleet with weekly recaps and with real-time audio in the cab, allowing us to widen our reach and scale our program easily."

We are also expanding support for managers with new AI-powered features, including guided coaching sessions and coaching role-play scenarios to help managers run consistent, high-quality conversations that lead to behavior change. 

Powering Samsara’s Automated Coaching solution is an expansion of our proprietary risk model, which now evaluates 45+ risk factors, including: frequency, severity, trip conditions, and driver history. This deeper analysis and understanding allow the system to route events with precision.

For fleets using Samsara’s full AI safety solution, that precision has translated into real-world results, with up to a 73% reduction in crash rates. With these new capabilities, we’re extending the impact of Samsara's automated coaching.

AI-powered manager training for higher-impact coaching 

Even the best safety leaders will say the same thing: difficult coaching conversations are never easy. They require preparation, balance, and consistency. Yet many frontline managers have never received formal training on how to coach effectively. High-stakes conversations can still feel intimidating, especially for newer managers. And in most organizations, there’s no opportunity to rehearse tough coaching conversations before sitting down with a real driver.

That’s why Samsara provides a continuous learning environment for managers, with two connected ways to improve: first, through practice, then through structured execution in live conversations.

Practice tough coaching conversations

In a simulated environment, managers can practice navigating difficult safety conversations with an AI-generated driver persona that mirrors realistic emotions and pushback. The experience feels authentic, allowing managers to work through objections, refine their tone, and build confidence before speaking with their drivers.

After each session, managers receive objective feedback on their communication style, measuring empathy, clarity, and goal alignment. This creates a feedback loop that helps standardize coaching quality across the organization.

Instead of reacting in the moment, managers walk into real conversations prepared and composed.

AI-guided coaching sessions

When it’s time for a live conversation, AI-guided coaching sessions provide the structure to turn preparation into impact.

For high-risk drivers, managers are guided through a structured one-on-one workflow designed to promote balanced, constructive dialogue. Instead of starting with a single video clip, the system provides context drawn from the driver’s broader history—surfacing trends, highlighting improvement areas, and identifying positive streaks worth recognizing—so managers know exactly what to cover, with an AI-generated script, talking points, and questions to guide a productive, balanced discussion.

That recognition-first approach is intentional. By prompting managers to acknowledge safe performance before addressing risk, the conversation feels fair and growth-oriented rather than punitive. It reinforces that safety is about continuous improvement—not isolated mistakes.

The Samsara coaching suite also creates accountability. Coaching sessions require documentation and acknowledgment, giving safety leaders visibility into what was discussed and ensuring follow-through without manual audits.

The outcome is consistency at scale: every manager equipped with the same structured framework, every driver receiving balanced, contextual coaching.

Preparing drivers before they hit the road

As we expand support for managers, we’re also strengthening the Samsara Coach for Safety with start-of-day briefings for drivers.

These short, roughly 30-second audio briefings play through the Samsara AI Dash Cams or the driver's mobile phone before a shift begins. Designed to be proactive and personalized, they help drivers anticipate risk before they encounter it.

During these audio briefings, a driver might receive a reminder about severe weather along their route. Another may hear reinforcement of a recent safety goal, such as maintaining a safe following distance. By connecting daily conditions with individual performance trends, the briefing becomes a daily, personalized reminder to reinforce safe driving.

Samsara Coach for Safety now creates a continuous loop of safety: 

• Start-of-day briefings preparing them for the road ahead.

• The two-way, in-cab voice calls supporting drivers in the moment.

• Personalized AI avatar coach reflecting on past performance.

This enables fleet managers to take control of the entire safety lifecycle, reflecting, protecting, and preparing drivers throughout their entire journey.

From flagging risk to proactively addressing it with 

Powered by Samsara’s proprietary AI risk model, Samsara helps fleets reduce the noise. By removing routine events from managers’ workloads and surfacing high-risk incidents where human leadership matters most, fleets are able to scale coaching and improve driver behaviors. Samsara’s coaching features for managers also deliver structured guidance to keep coaching conversations consistent and documented, while equipping managers with the tools and insights they need—ultimately improving coaching effectiveness over time.

"Through our partnership with Samsara, we have seen a clear correlation between our insurance customers who leverage driver coaching and reduced crash rates," said Alasdair MacKechnie, Head of Auto Liability at Inigo. "Sustained coaching through the Samsara platform can improve driver behavior, leading to fewer crashes, a reduction in loss activity, and insurance premium savings."

Samsara is not just flagging incidents. We’re helping fleets resolve them by combining AI scalability with human connection to drive meaningful behavior change and safer outcomes across every mile.

If you’re ready to standardize coaching quality, empower your managers, and build a continuous safety loop across your fleet, learn more about our Automated Coaching solution.